Southfield beats Troy to stay undefeated

TROY — To have a special season, a team will face a number of obstacles.

One of those obstacles for Southfield’s boys basketball team was a road game at Troy on Thursday night.

It took a team effort for 32 minutes, but the Bluejays managed to grind out a 62-52 victory over the Colts to improve to 9-0 on the season and 3-0 in the OAA Red.

“Hopefully this win takes us a long ways,” Southfield coach Gary Teasley said. “It’s a hostile environment and the kids just stuck together, which we have been preaching for a while.”

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The team effort for the Bluejays consisted of a strong performance from three key bench players as Manquel Ingram had 18 points to lead all scorers while Marquis Calhoun had six key points in the fourth quarter and Brandon Bean pulled down nine rebounds.

“(The Bluejays) go about nine, 10, 11 deep,” Troy coach Gary Fralick said of Southfield’s depth. “I scouted them twice and had a hard time keeping up with their personnel. When they put subs in the game, they play very similar to who they came in for. There was no real drop off in talent. It’s a hard team to play. They’re deep, they’re talented, they’re big.”

The Colts fall to 4-3 on the season and 2-1 in OAA Red play, but Troy made Southfield work for this victory.

After falling behind 6-0 to start the game, Troy quickly rallied behind a pair of 3-pointers from Zak Noor to cut the Southfield lead down to 8-7.

The Bluejays would finish the first quarter strong, on a 10-3 run, thanks to eight points from Quinton Arnold, giving Southfield an 18-10 lead.

Troy would again respond, hitting key 3-pointers to take its first lead of the game, 25-24, midway through the second quarter. The lead would change hands four times in the period before Southfield went into halftime leading 29-28. The Bluejays wouldn’t trail again.

“(The key for us) was about combinations and finding the right kids that could get in the game and do the job,” Teasley said. “We had to stay poised and play tough on the road. It’s hard to win on the road in the OAA.”

The game remained competitive throughout the second half. Southfield took a 40-37 lead into the fourth quarter and wasn’t able to pull away until the final minutes. Part of that late surge was due to Troy shooting just 8 of 17 from the free-throw line.

“We were shooting 74 percent (at the line) coming in, so that was one of our strengths,” Fralick said of the team’s shooting at the charity stripe. “When you 8 of 17 from the line and lose by 10, and really it was a closer game than that, it could have been a tie game going into the final two minutes.”

What Troy lacked at the line, it made up for from behind the arc, as the Colts hit eight 3-pointers for the contest, something Fralick attributed to a lack of an inside scoring presence.

“We had to battle a lot hard for our baskets and we had to hit a lot of 3’s,” Fralick said. “We need to get more of a post presence and be able to score inside more consistently. It’s hard to do when your post players are 6-2. They battle and they do things well, but we need to be able to score inside a bit better.”

Calhoun and Ingram locked up the game for Southfield by scoring 17 of the team’s 22 points in the fourth quarter. Arnold finished with 16 points while Jeff Geear had 11 points and three assists.

Troy was led by Noor, who had 13 points, while Chris Dorsey chipped in with 12. Joe Leonard and Ben Horvath each had 10 points for the Colts while Danny Wunderlich pulled down 10 rebounds.

“We just kept battling. We didn’t lose faith,” Fralick said of his team. “I thought we ran the ball very well on (Southfield). I think we got some early, quicker shots, which we wanted to do. I thought we could run with (Southfield) all night and I think we did a pretty good job of that. I don’t think I’d change my game plan. I’d just make a few more shots and hit our free throws.”

FARMINGTON HARRISON 79, HAZEL PARK 57: A.J. Freeman scored a game-high 19 points to lead Harrison, while John Rexroth added in 15 more for Harrison and Dorian Fields finished with 10 points and seven assists.

LAMPHERE 44, NEW HAVEN 40: S.H. certainly put her initials on this victory.

Senior guard Shannon Hoobler had 14 points, 10 assists and 10 steals to lead the Rams (5-4, 3-0). Junior center Alexis Hilliard scored 11 of her 13 in the first half.

“We’ve played really well in the league,” said Mike Kobus, the Lamphere coach. “We’ll be at Madison Tuesday, and that is a team we cannot overlook. On Friday, we host Center Line and they are undefeated.”

ROYAL OAK 6, WARREN-MOTT 1: Some forward-thinking by Craig Ward helped lead the Ravens to victory.

Ward, the Royal Oak coach, moved Mathieu Bashi from defense to forward, and Bashi responded with a hat trick. Also on Bashi’s line were former defenseman Seth Schuit and center Evan Fall.

The group accounted for all but one of the Royal Oak goals. Fall scored twice.

“We are near the halfway point of the season and we shook some things up moving people around to see if we can create some synergy. As a result it worked and we are trying to find what guys play well with others,” said Ward. “We had one goal and it was to play hard for 51 minutes.”

High school hockey consists of three 17-minute periods.

“I thought that every player on the team did their job and, again, it resulted in a very positive win for us.” Ward added.

Sophomore forward Griffin Kernen also added a goal on a nice screen shot from just inside the circle late in the game.